


In the Aftermath

by factorielle



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Gen, Unhappy Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-18
Updated: 2014-07-18
Packaged: 2018-02-09 09:54:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1978467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/factorielle/pseuds/factorielle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Win the Winter Cup, and then what?</p>
            </blockquote>





	In the Aftermath

Seirin wins the Winter Cup in a blaze of glory, and from there on there's no way but down.

Kiyoshi is the first to drop out. That in itself isn't unexpected; but what he meant when he said "this is my last tournament" was "if I don't stop playing right now I might never walk again". He doesn't only quit the team, but Seirin High and Kanto altogether. There's a clinic in Nagoya, he says. Not everything is lost, even if the odds are against him ever running, let alone playing basketball, again. He leaves in early January, and no more promises are made.

In February Kagami announces in his broken keigo that he's returning to America; he doesn't talk about grander goals and worthier opponents, but his eyes are already back over the ocean. Kuroko wishes him good luck with a dim smile, and doesn't watch the plane fly away.

In March Kuroko renews his request to be removed from the starters. Victory against Rakuzan didn't come cheap; Kuroko has torn his own abilities apart at the seams in his last-ditch desperate effort to counter Akashi and is nothing more now than a driven but mediocre player who happens to be friends, after a fashion, with the five best players left in the nation. Hyuuga tells him he'll make that decision when the new team is formed.

At the start of the school year Hyuuga is left with a title, a reputation and very little to uphold either. Two dozen freshmen request to join the team in the wake of Seirin's victory. When Riko gets them on the rooftop, one of them flatly refuses to make a fool of himself in front of the school, and is followed out by six of the others. They're on the soccer team now, Hyuuga thinks; and not his problem anymore. Of the ones who stay, Kuroko finds none to be his new light; at the end of April, they fail to get even one sandwich.

"Their circumstances are different," Riko explains, glum, as they're taking the long way home. "They spent two years being told about the Generation of Miracles and the Uncrowned Kings, but by the time they got to be starters all the terrifying players had moved on. Of course they're a little conceited."

"That doesn't make it any better," Hyuuga tells her, aware that he's stubbornly hanging on to a past that's long since escaped him.

"I know it doesn't," she says, and they walk the rest of the way in silence.

Seirin plays Shutoku in summer, in the second round of the prefecturals. Whether it's in deference to Kuroko not leaving the bench or because it's a bad day for Cancers, Midorima doesn't play. Hyuuga's buzzer beater at the end of the fourth quarter barely keeps Seirin from losing to a double score, and that's the end of the season.

The third-year players all resign together at the end of that week. Riko holds out the longest, takes the time to talk one of the employees in her father's gym into taking over as coach.

The school is willing to pay: they were national champions, not so long ago. 


End file.
